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The story goes that Saint Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland. Had there any dangerous snakes in Ireland, I wonder if we would have some snake-handling churches here today as they do in some parts of .

In any case, that story about the preacher who died at , in an attempt to demonstrate his reliance on God's protection, has got me thinking about other examples of life-threatening religious belief. Jehovah's Witnesses refusing blood because they believe the Bible is against the mingling of one person's blood with another's; the tradition in Hinduism, now almost unheard of, which led women to seek co-creation with their deceased husbands; the willingness of some conservative Christian women, in rare cases where their lives are threatened by a developing embryo, to rather than have an abortion. And so it goes on.

I've been talking today to Ken McGuire, the chair of the Jehovah's Witnesses' Hopsital Liaison Group in Belfast, and learning a great deal more about how they negotiate some of the ethical dilemmas and practical difficulties that accompany their that a transfusion of any blood products must be avoided at all cost. Actually, it's not just the transfusion of blood, it's also the consumption of non-human blood (so no black pudding for Jehovah's Witnesses either).

Ken McGuire will join me live on next week's Sunday Sequence to talk about life-engangering religious beliefs. I've invited , an expert in the history of sati at Edinburgh University, and the sociologist of religion to join us.